


Carry

by lotesse



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Community: sg_rarepairings, F/M, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-29
Updated: 2010-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-09 05:39:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotesse/pseuds/lotesse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: I can't carry it, but I can carry you and it as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry

The treasure-trove on P3X-119 had been a bone of contention ever since SG-4 had first stumbled on it: certain factions in the White House wanted to rob it of its wealth and feed the Treasury, certain factions of the social sciences at the SGC wanted to set up a museum on-location to preserve the artifacts, and Jack still hadn't given up the hope of finding a cache of large space guns somewhere amid the jeweled headdresses and painted porcelain vessels.

But then Bra'tac came through the 'Gate asking for Teal'c's help in training a new batch of Jaffa freedom fighters, and Teal'c had asked so earnestly for Jack's company that no one had been able to refuse him.

Sam had told General Hammond that there was no reason why the remaining members of SG-1 shouldn't go ahead exploring P3X-119, especially since Colonel O'Neill didn't really have much expertise relevant to the mission, and Daniel had been a good teammate and backed her up. And so off they went, once more unto the breach.

The gleaming golden hoard, when they entered the cool dark chamber, looked to Daniel like so much ash and dust – a worthless pile of cold dead objects without sense or meaning. He'd supported his archaeologists on principle during the squabble over the place, of course, but his heart had never been in it. He was so desperately tired of the richness of the Goa'uld universe, so deeply bored by the idea of yet another heap of wordly valuables, that he could almost have wept with it. There was no life in these things, no sense of a vital history hidden in their provenance. No one had used these bowls, or treasured these gems. The trove, as far as he could tell, contained only ostentation and cruelty.

The mission might actually be of some use to Sam, he supposed. Weapons technology was a much more likely find than anything of anthropological interest. She was smiling broadly as she set to deconstructing the door mechanism, and Daniel felt a pang of guilt at his own intransigence in the face of her happy interest. It was good that she had this chance. She spent so much time being military that Daniel had sometimes wondered when she managed to pursue her scholarship.

He was supposed to be packing away an elaborate inlaid carcanet, but Daniel found himself watching Sam tinker instead, idly playing with a little gold ring that had been resting in the hollow of an extravagant chalice. Sam took off her helmet, and her hair when it fell down over her shoulders was a mess. It was longish, for her, curling wildly around her ears. There was dust on her cheek, and she looked beautiful and animated and vivid. The ring was preternaturally cold as it slid unintended down the length of his finger, locking in to place below the barrier of his second knuckle. And once it settled there, the world around Daniel winked out like a stifled candle, and he felt himself falling.

*

Sam saw him go down, dramatic slow-motion tumble to the uneven ground. He lay there unmoving, and she scrambled to his side with a complete lack of dignity. Damn it, she thought. Just – not dead, just please not dead again. She'd never met anybody who managed to die as often as Daniel did. Before joining the SGC, she hadn't expected death to ever be modifiable by "often," but there she was, and the Colonel was back earthside, and there was no one but her to take care of things. To keep Daniel among the living.

He lay still as any graven artifact, body twisted awkwardly beneath him. Kneeling, she tried to lift him, touching his face. He didn't react, didn't even move. "Daniel," she said softly, and then hearing the unhappy anxiety in her voice she said it again, louder, attempting confidence.

She turned him over carefully, protecting his outflung arms, supporting his head and neck, and saw that his face was as pale as milk, and that his eyes were open.

But his gaze was vacant, and the large sky-blue eyes were glazed, clearly unseeing. Sam felt a shiver run down her spine. Daniel's eyes were always vivid, active, piercing. This blank look, on him of all people, was completely and utterly wrong.

There was a gold ring on his finger that she'd never seen before. He never wore anything on his hands – he'd had no wedding band with Sha're, and she'd always assumed that he wanted his hands free for work, not adorned with anything of worth. It was the only change, and she had to assume that it was the cause of his swoon, not a ring at all but some sinister Goa'uld trap. It wouldn't come off, wouldnt' even budge.

She touched his cheek, and he moaned quietly, lashes fluttering and then stilling again. Sam couldn't tell if she ought to be relieved – he was alive, and his will was still there, but he was definitely deeply unconscious, for no apparent reason, and that was not good. This was why she needed the Colonel around – someone had to be able to look after Daniel, and she didn't want it to be her. She was supposed to be next to Daniel in the space between the Colonel and Teal'c, free to play with him at the edges of their combined intellects, theorizing and extrapolating, re-making the shape of the universe together. The Colonel could bark and order and consider and protect. But now it was just her and Daniel, and Daniel was down.

Shaking off her paralysis, she looked again at his pale, still face. Okay. She had to cope with this. She didn't have a choice. The first order of business was to figure out what was wrong with Daniel, and to do that she figured she'd have to bring him around.

Gritting her teeth, she pulled her hand back and slapped him. His head rocked with the blow. "Daniel!" she called, hearing the tomb whisper echoes of his name. "Daniel!"

"S'm?" he sighed, almost voiceless, and relief hit her like a wave. She let her hand drift down to card through his hair.

"That's it, Daniel. Come on, wake up and talk to me." But he didn't speak again, and she could feel him slipping back into semi-consciousness under her hands.

*

The world around him was grey, veined, lined with a tactile fog that held him back from sensate reality. His mind was filled with half-heard voices; he tried to wrestle clarity from any one of them, but they slid away broken as soon as he turned his attention to them.

It was that more than anything that set his panicked heart rising into his silenced mouth – the lack of data, of information, and thus the lack of both analysis and comprehension. He couldn't think; it was the most frightening loss imaginable. From somewhere very far away, Sam's voice came down to him like light through water: percieved, but beyond any real hearing. She sounded sharp – worried? - but through the miasma covering him he couldn't entirely tell.

*

Okay, she thought again, stabilizing herself. Slapping him wasn't getting through to him. She needed to try other forms of tactile stimulation.

She winced at the array of methods that flashed through her mind – heat, cold, pressure, cutting, needles, electricity. She couldn't do those things to Daniel, particularly not to Daniel as he currently lay sprawled half-on and half-off of her lap, insensate and lost.

When the idea came to her, she didn't hesitate. It was him, and so it was okay. It would always be okay. She stroked the side of his lax face, and then leaned down and kissed the skin at the edge of his eyelashes. They fluttered again in response, and her mouth curled up into a slight smile.

She started up a circuit of stimulation: eyes, ears, mouth, throat, nape. She found herself thinking surprisedly that his skin was ridiculously soft. He responded slowly, lashes trembling and lips mumbling unintelligible words, but she though that he was coming to, that he was more present. When she felt his fingers weakly grasp at her free hand, she knew it, and when she kissed his mouth victoriously, he faintly kissed her back.

*

He was alone in the dark, thoughtless and senseless. He felt as though he'd lain buried in fear for hours – and then, sudden as a gunshot, he felt the touch of lips on his cheek. They were warm, and soft – women's lips, bare of any cosmetic covering. Not Sha're's, but still sweet and longed-for.

Hands touched his face, running along his cheekbones, petting through his hair. Callused, small, dextrous. He knew them: Sam's hands. Captain/Doctor hands, both strong and clever. She was touching him, somewhere beyond his sight, and he wanted to be there for it. He struggled against the lassitude that held him, trying to fight his way back to her.

*

"Sam," Daniel gasped at last. By that time she was almost crying with worry; she needed to get him home, and he was so far under that she didn't know how she'd manage it. She could never carry him so far. She pressed her face against his, and left tearstains on his forehead. "Sam," he said, voice as rough as if he'd swallowed a desert, "help me. I can't – stay."

"It's okay, Daniel," she said, injecting iron into her tone – aiming for the Colonel's tried-and-true gentle-yet-commanding voice, the one that had seen them through so many desperate scrapes. "Just stay with me. Focus on my breath. Can you look at me?"

His eyes widened; she could tell that he was struggling to make them focus. His head turned to look at her, and though his expression was still somewhat vague, he was at least looking in her general direction. That was a plus. "You kissed me," he said.

"You'd rather I kept slapping you?"

He almost managed a smile. "No, that's okay. It was nice."

Mouth twisting down hard, she managed to say, "No problem, Daniel. Anything I can do."

"Get this damned ring off me?"

"You're going to have to help me with that," she told him. "We need to get back to the 'gate."

He was quiet for a long moment – too long, and she started to fear that he'd slipped away from her again. Then he sighed. "You need me to walk."

"Just a little bit," she assured him. "I can help you, but I don't think I can carry you so far by myself. Can you do it?"

"If you can keep me grounded," he said resignedly, "I'll try."

Eventually they managed an awkward sort of crablike shuffle, Daniel's arm slung around her shoulders as his feet slid out from underneath him again and again. His head was down, and she couldn't see his eyes, but as they stepped out of the trove and into the dusk of the alien world, she could hear him muttering beneath his breath: "Can't see anything – Sam, still there? - everything keeps leaving and I can't figure out how to pin it down." She tightened her grip on his waist and nuzzled her cheek against his silky hair, trying to ground him through sensation, trying to anchor him in safety and companionship and love.

He fell, badly, before they could make it to the 'gate. He just went down suddenly, too suddenly for her to catch him in time, and his head hit the ground with a nasty sound. She knelt to help him back up, and when he looked up at her his eyes were blown, pupils wide and dark and vague. "Sam," he said softly. "It's gone. And now everything is dark and empty."

She kissed him again full on the mouth, and said, face close enough to his to feel the warm moisture of his breath, "We'll get it back, Daniel. We'll get it back.

She hoisted him over her shoulder, taking nearly the full weight of his body as they stumbled together through the 'gate.

Janet was waiting for them at the ramp, and as her aides settled Daniel onto a clean stretcher, Sam knew it would all be all right. This was Daniel. It would always be okay.


End file.
